For Podiatrists, Chiropodists and Healthcare Professionals:

Antifungal
Socks Helped Prevent Recurrence of Toenail Fungus

Recurrence of toenail funugus
(onychomycosis) and athlete's
foot (tinea pedis) can affect as many as 87% of poditary
patients.
People
suffering from toenail fungus and athlete's foot are typcially treated
using an orally adminstered drug such as itraconazole.
It is
thought that re-infection
occurs because patients wear shoes and socks that are contaminated with
fomites carrying the fungal infection.
Fomites may also be found around
the patient's home.

Bristow and Turner (2009) describe a case study involving a 59
year old male who has had a history of toenail fungus and athlete's
foot for 18
years. Two courses of oral itraconazole had both lead to an
improvement. However, within 6 months of the treatment finishing
reinfection occured.

A new course of treatment was instigated. This involved a 12
week prescription of itraconazole (200mg per day) and a 5% amorolfine
topical nail lacquer. In order to help the topical nail lacquer
penetrate the nail plate a podiatry
drill was used to reduce the
affected toenails. Instead of wearing his normal socks, the patient was
given four pairs of
Cupron Antifungal Socks which he was asked to wear.

"The socks contain traces of copper oxide woven into
the material but still look and feel like ordinary socks."

Prior to this course of treatment the patient was found to
have positive mycology, however after four weeks the mycology was
negative. The patient continued to wear the antifungal
socks on the
advice of his podiatrist. He bought more antifungal socks and did not
suffer from recurrence for a year.

A study by Zatcoff et al. (2007) of 56 patients between 21 and 85 years old demonstrated that treatment
of athlete's foot benefitted from the use of copper
impregnated socks.
It is recommended that further research be carried out into the
effective of wearing antifungal socks to reduce the amount of
recurrence of fungal toenails and athlete's foot.